Be a Mooch
The beauty of my couch surfing Pacific Coast trip is that you can do it yourself with a little networking and imagination. First off, my choices of route were limited to some extent by where I had connections, but thanks to the internet, my social network goes far beyond the traditional boundaries of work, school, family, neighborhood, and outlaw biker club. If you don't have an extended network, welcome to the 21st century. Thanks to general social sites like Facebook, I can keep up with a horde of distant relatives and former classmates that I wouldn't have otherwise had access to. And once you build even a modest network, you start connecting with your connections' connections. There are also online discussion groups where I scored a couple more connections as well. Once you've interacted with someone for long enough yakking about bikes, your favorite football team, or Paris Hilton's latest tape or arrest, they might as well be your next door neighbor.
For a more direct route, I dug up a site called couchsurfing.org that specifically connects people with other people all over the world who are looking for strangers to share their lives with. Risky? Possibly. But if we weren't willing to accept a little risk, we wouldn't ride motorcycles.
Packing for a Mooch Tour
I'm sure we all know how to effectively pack for a big trip, but there are some unique situations to take into account when relying on the generosity of others. For one, you have to think of accommodations for not just you but your bike as well. You also have to consider how far they are from you and how safe it is, since you're not quite as in control as you would be on a hotel or camping trip.
Obviously, saddlebag liners are a good idea, as they're self-contained and make for easy loading and unloading at stops. I actually did it without liners, strapping my overnight stuff to a Saddlemen Roller Sissybar Bag, which I could just unclip and roll away from the bike. I actually had nothing I needed at night on the bike. The saddlebags were filled with road items like snacks, drinks, rain gear, additional layers of warm clothes (including heated liners...mmmmm), helmet visors, tools, sunblock, and anything else for life between the lines. That way when I'm done for the day, I just lock it up and walk away.
If you pack lighter than me (as most do), you can use this same idea by packing one saddlebag liner with all your overnight stuff, and all of the road items in the other.